I noticed this answer on Super User this morning, obvious advertisement for some commercial plugin. Quite usual situation, happening frequently.

What is more surprising, though, is the amount of upvotes this user got for his other answer, advertising one as well. The answer was clearly off topic, but it got highly upvoted, very fast.

Following this track, we can see another user advertising the same product, once again with quite good reputation (for an advertiser, of course). His only answers are about this product, and the other one is where we reach a wonderful, magical place!

The place where everyone agrees that this product is wonderful, ideal, so great, and all with high votes! This question has obviously been cleaned up already, many of the users are deleted (we could probably get rid of their CW posts as well), but it shows really a "farm" of advertising users, and smarter than the usual.

For example, this one posted a valid question, to gather enough reputation to be able to vote. And same for others, finally. That way, they advertise, agree with each other, and upvote each other!

Well I've used up all my SU spam flags for the day...
–
ChrisFApr 9 '10 at 16:37

14

You deserve a badge for this. Of course, if they made such a badge, then people would try to get it. We'd have users creating nine sockpuppets, eight to participate in an ad ring like this and one to report them all as spam afterwards for the badge....
–
Pops♦Apr 9 '10 at 16:54

2

thanks Gnoupi, i'm looking into this now. got a small list of users but the mod IP crosscheck isn't picking them up. whee.
–
quack quixoteApr 9 '10 at 17:34

While in this case it's probably just spam, I don't mind if people advertise their software as long as they can give us an explanation of why that product solves the users problem. Spammers are just lazy and simply post a link...
–
Ivo FlipseApr 9 '10 at 19:43

awww, that's too bad. i like the alternative, tho the thumbnail isn't too clear. (i liked the old one too; after i posted that comment i wondered if you could photoshop a tommygun into it and get the best of both!)
–
quack quixoteApr 10 '10 at 22:43

@quack - I'll give more time to the initial one, it's indeed more in the tone. We'll see if it goes ok.
–
GnoupiApr 10 '10 at 23:12

4 years later and the questions quoted in this post are still alive and well on their sites. :/
–
Jason CNov 5 '14 at 9:03

3 Answers
3

There seem to be several users involved in this. All have (1) low rep (<200), (2) 1-5 answers, (3) 0-2 questions, (4) great excitement about the product. As you note, Gnoupi, their questions are often astroturfing by a spreading FUD about a competing product.

There were 10 different users, 8 of those users could be grouped into 3 sets by crossreferenced IPs. It's hard to tell if they were actual sockpuppets, or actually different users happening upon the same IP at different times via DHCP, NAT'd, whatever.

There were some apparently legitimate posts that mention the product and link to the site, but it seems innocent. Be careful with your flags. :)